Saturday, March 17, 2012

The Pew Research Center is out with its latest public opinion survey on the health care reform law. Quoting from the accompanying news release:

Overall, 47% approve of the law, while 45% disapprove. The 47% approval
represents an uptick in support since January 2011 (41% approve vs. 48%
disapprove). Since the bill became law on March 23, 2010, disapproval of
the legislation has been fairly steady, ranging from 44% in April 2010
to 48% in January 2011. Approval has shown somewhat more movement, from a
low of 35% in July 2010, to a high of 47% in the current survey.

Pew also provides a table with many demographic comparisons. The reform law is most popular among Black and Hispanic respondents, 18-29 year-olds, holders of a bachelor's degree or higher, respondents with a family income of $30,000 or less, and Democrats. Slightly more political independents disapprove (47%) than approve (44%) of the law, with Republicans heavily in opposition.

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Introduction

Professor Alan Reifman of Texas Tech University, who teaches social science research methodology, compiled and commented on health care-reform public opinion polls as Congressional debate heated up in the late summer and fall of 2009, and legislation was enacted in the spring of 2010. He continues to chime in periodically regarding new developments in the health care saga.

Followers

R2K Polling Controversy

On June 29, 2010, the website Daily Kos announced that polls it had commissioned from the firm Research 2000 were "likely bunk." Kos has asked readers to disregard all R2K polls done for his site. Any Kos/R2K polls cited here on the Health Care Polls blog over the past several months should accordingly be disregarded, as well. I am leaving them up, however, as part of the historical record. Often, my analyses of polling trends that included R2K surveys also included polls from other firms, too. I hope the pending lawsuits between Kos and R2K will reveal whether the latter's polls are completely valid, completely made-up, or perhaps, as Nate Silver suggested, the product of data being merely "mangled."